On they hurried in the darkness, which was now at the very deepest of the night; now and then a torch was borne across the street, and most of the houses had lights in the upper windows, for few Londoners slept on that strange night. The stained glass of the windows of the Churches beamed in bright colours from the Altar lights seen through them, but the lads made slower progress than they wished, for the streets were never easy to walk in the dark, and twice they came on mobs assailing houses, from the windows of one of which, French shoes and boots were being hailed down. Things were moderately quiet around St. Paul’s, but as they came into Warwick Lane they heard fresh shouts and wild cries, and at the archway heading to the inner yard they could see that there was a huge bonfire in the midst of the court—of what composed they could not see for the howling figures that exulted round it. “George Bates, the villain!” cried Stephen, as his enemy in exulting ferocious delight was revealed for a moment throwing a book on the fire, and shouting, “Hurrah! there’s for the old sorcerer, there’s for the heretics!” That instant Giles was flying on Bates, and Stephen, with equal, if not greater fury, at one of his comrades; but Ambrose dashed through the outskirts of the wildly screaming and shouting fellows, many of whom were the miscreant population of the mews, to the black yawning doorway of his master. He saw only a fellow staggering out with the screw of the press to feed the flame, and hurried on in the din to call “Master, art thou there?” There was no answer, and he moved on to the next door, calling again softly, while all the spoilers seemed absorbed in the fire and the combat. “Master Michael! ’Tis I, Ambrose!” “Here, my son,” cautiously answered a voice he knew for Lucas Hansen’s. “Oh, master! master!” was his low, heart-stricken cry, as by the leaping light of a flame he saw the pale face of the old printer, who drew him in. “Yea! ’tis ruin, my son,” said Lucas. “And would that that were the worst.” The light flashed and flickered through the broken window so that Ambrose saw that the hangings had been torn down and everything wrecked, and a low sound as of stifled weeping directed his eyes to a corner where Aldonza sat with her father’s head on her lap. “Lives he? Is he greatly hurt?” asked Ambrose, awe-stricken. “The life is yet in him, but I fear me greatly it is passing fast,” said Lucas, in a low voice. “One of those lads smote him on the back with a club, and struck him down at the poor maid’s feet, nor hath he moved since. It was that one young Headley is fighting with,” he added. “Bates! ah! Would that we had come sooner! What! more of this work—”